Leonardo Da Vinci: Man Destroyer
Created | Updated Jan 31, 2006
Leonardo’s Secret Mission
Leonardo Da Vinci is regarded today as one of the greatest thinkers, painters, scientists, inventors, anatomists, and authors of his time. A “Universal Genius,” if you will. His paintings are still displayed today in world famous art museums, his drawings have set the basis for many modern day machines; his work on anatomy and the human body was years ahead of its time; and his once ridiculed philosophies are now globally accepted as mainstream works. All of this is good and well, but there was another part of Leonardo’s belief system that few had ventured into: The fact that he was secretly plotting against mankind itself. Leonardo believed that mankind was, and had been destroying nature, and that it had to be punished for its crimes. After this revelation, he then concentrated the majority of his life’s work on one, finding an element of nature with which to punish them, and two, prophesying the downfall of mankind.
“Because of this the great forests will be deprived of their trees and an infinity of animals will lose their lives: of metals.” (Qtd. In Ladislao 287). Here Leonardo provided us with a glimpse into his mind, displaying his disdain of the human race’s industrial passion, and with that passion, their disregard for the works of nature. This was just the first of Leonardo’s many complaints about humanity, and as he aged, his dark view of mankind and his general pessimism towards mankind only deepened further. (Wallace 170)
In addition to a great number of seemingly random complaints set against man’s lack of caring for the art that is nature, Leonardo also provided us with several prophesies and fables, further showing his disgust of mankind.
“Creatures shall be seen upon the earth who will always be fighting one with another, with very great losses and frequent deaths on either side. These shall set no bounds to their malice; by their fierce limbs a great number of the trees in the immense forests of the world shall be laid level with the ground; and when thy have crammed themselves with food it shall gratify their desire to deal out death affliction, labors, terrors, and banishment to every living thing. And by reason of their boundless pride they shall wish to rise towards heaven, but the excessive weight of their limbs shall hold them down. There shall be nothing remaining on the earth or under the earth or in the waters that shall not be pursued, carried away, or destroyed, and that which is in one country shall be taken away to another; and their own bodies shall be made the tomb and the means of transit of all the living bodies which they have slain. O Earth! What delays thee to open and hurl them headlong into the deep fissures of they huge abysses and caverns, and no longer to display in the sight of heaven so savage and ruthless a monster?” (QTD in Ladislao 287).
This prophesy, entitled, “The Cruelty of Man,” blames mankind for the destruction of natures gifts, and stresses his feeling of utter helplessness, as he feels powerless to assist Earth in ridding Herself of these pests. This feeling however would later drive him into discovering many of his findings, and set him upon his secret quest.
Leonardo often used fables as a way of stressing mans ignorance, and lack of caring for the natural world. He wrote about a lovesick monkey who eventually killed a little bird by smothering it with its kisses; a predatory crab who was crushed by the rock under which it hid; and a pear tree scorning its neighboring laurel and myrtle because the pear tree’s bark was a favorite of the woodpecker, while theirs was only used for wreaths. (Whiting 111) Perhaps the most meaningful of these fables was the one of the crab, who after preying on the weak and defenseless, was eventually betrayed by the one place at which he sought safety. Leonardo held this true to mankind, that after preying on and depleting our natural resources, our own planet would turn on us, and his ferocious prophesies of the Deluge would come to pass.
All the animals languish, filling the air with lamentations. The woods fall in ruin. The mountains are torn open in order to carry away the metals which are produced there. But how can I speak of anything more wicked than (the actions) of those who raise hymns of praise to heaven for those who with greater zeal have injured their country and the human race (ATLANTICUS 382v-a).
Now while Leonardo Da Vinci did not write this quote himself, it obviously held some level of meaning to him, because it can be found today in the remnants of his legendary notebooks, where he recorded all of his findings and theories.
Leonardo Da Vinci clearly believed that mankind had to be punished for its crimes against Nature and the Earth itself, but this belief provided a fascinating problem. What kind of tool could possibly exist on earth that would be strong enough and ferocious enough to inflict the kind of damage upon them that they had dealt, and to ultimately, cause them to realize the error of their ways? For Leonardo did not wish to destroy mankind, he merely yearned to improve it. Leonardo knew of only one force that could yield that kind of power, and produce the effect he had hoped for. And there was no better way to punish them than with the very force they had so mercilessly pursued and ravaged; Nature herself.
Leonardo was no stranger to the ways and works of Nature, it was “his passion, regardless of his endeavors creating military war machines.” (Stanley no pge) But now his interest in Nature dove deeper into a completely new level of understanding, beyond the creative, the colorful, and the beautiful aspects, to the destructive, dark, and mysterious aspects. He would still spend hours upon hours sketching and trying to understand every aspect of nature, but now it was not merely fascination that drove him, but his growing hatred of mankind. The content in his notebooks abruptly switch from drawings of the beautifully intertwined plant vines he had once studied, but now to short blurbs about different aspects of nature, each one portraying nature as a destroyer.
“After a short time the nut began to prize open and put roots between the cracks of the stone, and to enlarge them, to thrust out branches from its hiding place.” (QTD in Whiting 118).
Here Leonardo was obviously intrigued by the ferocity of a tiny acorn, that such a small work of nature could destroy such an imposing object like a rock. This initial observation urged him to delve deeper into the larger, more destructive elements of nature that would eventually lead him to his weapon of choice.
To Leonardo rock pinnacles and cliffs depicted the first line of defense for the natural world, but what interested him the most was not their defensive power, but rather the power that had shaped them, cut straight through their middles with its relentless fury, the “element” of water. Leonardo was so fascinated with the destructive side of water that he went as far as to venture that water could “move mountains.”
“The ruin of mountains falling down, their bases consumed by the continuous currents of rivers which gnaw at their feet with very swift waters (and) the subterranean passage of waters, like those which exist between the earth and the air… which continually consume and deepen the beds of their passage. (QTD in Whiting 118).
Leonardo did not halt his research at this however, and he would spend hours at the river bank checking and conducting some seven hundred and thirty experiments on everything from the transmission of sound in water to the vortex, or whirlpool effect. While his experiments on the transmission of sound in water yielded little helpful information to his cause, his observations of the vortex did.
“For him, the vortex was the ubiquitous sign of the life that was beneath the surface of the natural world.” (Whiting 125). Ironically enough though, even though he viewed the vortex as a sign of life, it was still almost certainly a sign of destruction for him as well.
“At times it turns towards the center of the earth consuming the base which supports it; at times it leaps up swirling and bubbling to the sky; at times revolving in a circle it confounds its course…Thus…it is ever removing and consuming whatever borders upon it. Going thus with fury it is turbulent and destructive. (QTD in Whiting 124).
“Among irremediable and destructive terrors the inundation caused by rivers in flood should certainly be set before every other dreadful and terrifying movement. (QTD in Wallace 182). “Water’s combination of mobility and weight made it the most feared of the elements in Leonardo’s opinion.” (Whiting 130).
Leonardo had found his tool of destruction. “…And the mountains had been molded by the forces of tempest and flood; the same forces that would destroy all.” (QTD in Wallace 151).
Leonardo had always been fascinated by nature.
“But towards the end of his years this fascination seems at times to have overwhelmed him, and from these moments came his strange and fearsome drawings of the deluge which he predicted would someday sweep away man and all his works end the world.” (QTD in Wallace 180).
As his health failed him in the last days of his life, some would argue his sanity went with him, because within the last year of his life were produced his drawings of the dreaded Deluge, the very thing he had tried so desperately to unleash upon the world. But as he went slowly away from this world, it seems he did not leave in vain, as he continued to record his prophesies of the Deluge one day being carried out, and humanity paying it’s debt to nature.
“Let the dark gloomy air be seen beaten by the rush of opposing winds wreathed in perpetual rain mingled with hail…All around let there be seen ancient trees uprooted and torn in pieces by the fury of the winds…And let the fragments of some of the Mts. Be fallen down into the depths of one of the valleys, and there form a barrier to the swollen waters of its river, which having already burst the barrier rushes on with immense waves…” (QTD in Wallace 182).
“Let some mountains collapse headlong into the depths of a valley and dam up the swollen waters of its river… Let the biggest (rivers) strike and demolish the cities and country residencies of that valley. And let the disintegration of these high buildings of the said cities raise much dust which will rise up like smoke or wreathed clouds through the descending rain. Let the swollen waters gyrate within the lake which contains them, and with eddying vortices percussively strike against various objects and rebound into the air as muddied foam, which as it falls, splashes the water that it strikes back up into the air.” (QTD in Whiting 130).
Along with these vague prophecies of destruction Leonardo also recorded two specific, alternate scenarios of the Deluge. Each one of these prophecies involves a specific city, Florence, and specific characters, Leonardo, Giuliano de Medici, and Pope Leo X. The first of the two prophesies contains a much more pessimistic scenario, where the city is destroyed, and it ends with Giuliano and Leo being engulfed in a giant fireball, what Leonardo viewed as, “the prophet’s (Leonardo) final trumpet over his enemies.” (QTD in Whiting 130). Scenario two, while still pessimistic, provides a more cheerful ending, set up in a series of seemingly random titles. It begins with the people of Florence preaching their persuasion of faith; followed by the sudden deluge; and then the city’s destruction. The people are overwhelmed with death and despair; but Diodario (Giuliano) recalls the preaching of the prophet; and they then set out into the mountains to find the liberating prophet (Leonardo.) The mountains then collapsed, and the people are destroyed by snow. The survivors then find the prophet, and he solves the Deluge by cutting through the Taurus Mountains. The end was a sight of peace and prosperity; with a final warning form the prophet.
“The time will come when our luxuriant and fruitful earth will grow dry and sterile. By reason of the pent-up waters in the earth’s womb and by reason of nature’s laws, the earth will follow its inevitable course, and passing through the circle of ice cold, rarefied air. It will complete the cycle through the element of fire. And the surface of the earth having become at last a burnt cinder, all earthly nature shall cease.” (QTD in Whiting 132).
Here Leonardo came close to predicting 20th century planetary concerns of destruction.
And perhaps these were not just prophesies, but plans as well, left behind as his legacy, hoping that someday another would pick up his torch where he had left it, and bring it the distance, harnessing the powers of nature, and turning them loose upon the world.
Leonardo Da Vinci is regarded today as one of the greatest thinkers, painters, scientists, inventors, anatomists, and authors of his time. A “Universal Genius,” if you will. His paintings are still displayed today in world famous art museums, his drawings have set the basis for many modern day machines; his work on anatomy and the human body was years ahead of its time; and his once ridiculed philosophies are now globally accepted as mainstream works. All of this is good and well, but there was another part of Leonardo’s belief system that few had ventured into: The fact that he was secretly plotting against mankind itself. Leonardo believed that mankind was, and had been destroying nature, and that it had to be punished for its crimes. After this revelation, he then concentrated the majority of his life’s work on one, finding an element of nature with which to punish them, and two, prophesying the downfall of mankind.
“Because of this the great forests will be deprived of their trees and an infinity of animals will lose their lives: of metals.” (Qtd. In Ladislao 287). Here Leonardo provided us with a glimpse into his mind, displaying his disdain of the human race’s industrial passion, and with that passion, their disregard for the works of nature. This was just the first of Leonardo’s many complaints about humanity, and as he aged, his dark view of mankind and his general pessimism towards mankind only deepened further. (Wallace 170)
In addition to a great number of seemingly random complaints set against man’s lack of caring for the art that is nature, Leonardo also provided us with several prophesies and fables, further showing his disgust of mankind.
“Creatures shall be seen upon the earth who will always be fighting one with another, with very great losses and frequent deaths on either side. These shall set no bounds to their malice; by their fierce limbs a great number of the trees in the immense forests of the world shall be laid level with the ground; and when thy have crammed themselves with food it shall gratify their desire to deal out death affliction, labors, terrors, and banishment to every living thing. And by reason of their boundless pride they shall wish to rise towards heaven, but the excessive weight of their limbs shall hold them down. There shall be nothing remaining on the earth or under the earth or in the waters that shall not be pursued, carried away, or destroyed, and that which is in one country shall be taken away to another; and their own bodies shall be made the tomb and the means of transit of all the living bodies which they have slain. O Earth! What delays thee to open and hurl them headlong into the deep fissures of they huge abysses and caverns, and no longer to display in the sight of heaven so savage and ruthless a monster?” (QTD in Ladislao 287).
This prophesy, entitled, “The Cruelty of Man,” blames mankind for the destruction of natures gifts, and stresses his feeling of utter helplessness, as he feels powerless to assist Earth in ridding Herself of these pests. This feeling however would later drive him into discovering many of his findings, and set him upon his secret quest.
Leonardo often used fables as a way of stressing mans ignorance, and lack of caring for the natural world. He wrote about a lovesick monkey who eventually killed a little bird by smothering it with its kisses; a predatory crab who was crushed by the rock under which it hid; and a pear tree scorning its neighboring laurel and myrtle because the pear tree’s bark was a favorite of the woodpecker, while theirs was only used for wreaths. (Whiting 111) Perhaps the most meaningful of these fables was the one of the crab, who after preying on the weak and defenseless, was eventually betrayed by the one place at which he sought safety. Leonardo held this true to mankind, that after preying on and depleting our natural resources, our own planet would turn on us, and his ferocious prophesies of the Deluge would come to pass.
All the animals languish, filling the air with lamentations. The woods fall in ruin. The mountains are torn open in order to carry away the metals which are produced there. But how can I speak of anything more wicked than (the actions) of those who raise hymns of praise to heaven for those who with greater zeal have injured their country and the human race (ATLANTICUS 382v-a).
Now while Leonardo Da Vinci did not write this quote himself, it obviously held some level of meaning to him, because it can be found today in the remnants of his legendary notebooks, where he recorded all of his findings and theories.
Leonardo Da Vinci clearly believed that mankind had to be punished for its crimes against Nature and the Earth itself, but this belief provided a fascinating problem. What kind of tool could possibly exist on earth that would be strong enough and ferocious enough to inflict the kind of damage upon them that they had dealt, and to ultimately, cause them to realize the error of their ways? For Leonardo did not wish to destroy mankind, he merely yearned to improve it. Leonardo knew of only one force that could yield that kind of power, and produce the effect he had hoped for. And there was no better way to punish them than with the very force they had so mercilessly pursued and ravaged; Nature herself.
Leonardo was no stranger to the ways and works of Nature, it was “his passion, regardless of his endeavors creating military war machines.” (Stanley no pge) But now his interest in Nature dove deeper into a completely new level of understanding, beyond the creative, the colorful, and the beautiful aspects, to the destructive, dark, and mysterious aspects. He would still spend hours upon hours sketching and trying to understand every aspect of nature, but now it was not merely fascination that drove him, but his growing hatred of mankind. The content in his notebooks abruptly switch from drawings of the beautifully intertwined plant vines he had once studied, but now to short blurbs about different aspects of nature, each one portraying nature as a destroyer.
“After a short time the nut began to prize open and put roots between the cracks of the stone, and to enlarge them, to thrust out branches from its hiding place.” (QTD in Whiting 118).
Here Leonardo was obviously intrigued by the ferocity of a tiny acorn, that such a small work of nature could destroy such an imposing object like a rock. This initial observation urged him to delve deeper into the larger, more destructive elements of nature that would eventually lead him to his weapon of choice.
To Leonardo rock pinnacles and cliffs depicted the first line of defense for the natural world, but what interested him the most was not their defensive power, but rather the power that had shaped them, cut straight through their middles with its relentless fury, the “element” of water. Leonardo was so fascinated with the destructive side of water that he went as far as to venture that water could “move mountains.”
“The ruin of mountains falling down, their bases consumed by the continuous currents of rivers which gnaw at their feet with very swift waters (and) the subterranean passage of waters, like those which exist between the earth and the air… which continually consume and deepen the beds of their passage. (QTD in Whiting 118).
Leonardo did not halt his research at this however, and he would spend hours at the river bank checking and conducting some seven hundred and thirty experiments on everything from the transmission of sound in water to the vortex, or whirlpool effect. While his experiments on the transmission of sound in water yielded little helpful information to his cause, his observations of the vortex did.
“For him, the vortex was the ubiquitous sign of the life that was beneath the surface of the natural world.” (Whiting 125). Ironically enough though, even though he viewed the vortex as a sign of life, it was still almost certainly a sign of destruction for him as well.
“At times it turns towards the center of the earth consuming the base which supports it; at times it leaps up swirling and bubbling to the sky; at times revolving in a circle it confounds its course…Thus…it is ever removing and consuming whatever borders upon it. Going thus with fury it is turbulent and destructive. (QTD in Whiting 124).
“Among irremediable and destructive terrors the inundation caused by rivers in flood should certainly be set before every other dreadful and terrifying movement. (QTD in Wallace 182). “Water’s combination of mobility and weight made it the most feared of the elements in Leonardo’s opinion.” (Whiting 130).
Leonardo had found his tool of destruction. “…And the mountains had been molded by the forces of tempest and flood; the same forces that would destroy all.” (QTD in Wallace 151).
Leonardo had always been fascinated by nature.
“But towards the end of his years this fascination seems at times to have overwhelmed him, and from these moments came his strange and fearsome drawings of the deluge which he predicted would someday sweep away man and all his works end the world.” (QTD in Wallace 180).
As his health failed him in the last days of his life, some would argue his sanity went with him, because within the last year of his life were produced his drawings of the dreaded Deluge, the very thing he had tried so desperately to unleash upon the world. But as he went slowly away from this world, it seems he did not leave in vain, as he continued to record his prophesies of the Deluge one day being carried out, and humanity paying it’s debt to nature.
“Let the dark gloomy air be seen beaten by the rush of opposing winds wreathed in perpetual rain mingled with hail…All around let there be seen ancient trees uprooted and torn in pieces by the fury of the winds…And let the fragments of some of the Mts. Be fallen down into the depths of one of the valleys, and there form a barrier to the swollen waters of its river, which having already burst the barrier rushes on with immense waves…” (QTD in Wallace 182).
“Let some mountains collapse headlong into the depths of a valley and dam up the swollen waters of its river… Let the biggest (rivers) strike and demolish the cities and country residencies of that valley. And let the disintegration of these high buildings of the said cities raise much dust which will rise up like smoke or wreathed clouds through the descending rain. Let the swollen waters gyrate within the lake which contains them, and with eddying vortices percussively strike against various objects and rebound into the air as muddied foam, which as it falls, splashes the water that it strikes back up into the air.” (QTD in Whiting 130).
Along with these vague prophecies of destruction Leonardo also recorded two specific, alternate scenarios of the Deluge. Each one of these prophecies involves a specific city, Florence, and specific characters, Leonardo, Giuliano de Medici, and Pope Leo X. The first of the two prophesies contains a much more pessimistic scenario, where the city is destroyed, and it ends with Giuliano and Leo being engulfed in a giant fireball, what Leonardo viewed as, “the prophet’s (Leonardo) final trumpet over his enemies.” (QTD in Whiting 130). Scenario two, while still pessimistic, provides a more cheerful ending, set up in a series of seemingly random titles. It begins with the people of Florence preaching their persuasion of faith; followed by the sudden deluge; and then the city’s destruction. The people are overwhelmed with death and despair; but Diodario (Giuliano) recalls the preaching of the prophet; and they then set out into the mountains to find the liberating prophet (Leonardo.) The mountains then collapsed, and the people are destroyed by snow. The survivors then find the prophet, and he solves the Deluge by cutting through the Taurus Mountains. The end was a sight of peace and prosperity; with a final warning form the prophet.
“The time will come when our luxuriant and fruitful earth will grow dry and sterile. By reason of the pent-up waters in the earth’s womb and by reason of nature’s laws, the earth will follow its inevitable course, and passing through the circle of ice cold, rarefied air. It will complete the cycle through the element of fire. And the surface of the earth having become at last a burnt cinder, all earthly nature shall cease.” (QTD in Whiting 132).
Here Leonardo came close to predicting 20th century planetary concerns of destruction.
And perhaps these were not just prophesies, but plans as well, left behind as his legacy, hoping that someday another would pick up his torch where he had left it, and bring it the distance, harnessing the powers of nature, and turning them loose upon the world.
